麻豆传媒

Your most famous escapade as a volcanologist was a trip to North Korea. How did that happen?

I went because they asked me. The government was concerned that recent earthquakes might signal a repeat of one of the most dramatic volcanic eruptions of the past 2000 years, which occurred at Mount Paektu, on the present-day border with China. They wanted some outside expertise. Before going there for the first time in 2011, I knew something of the geological history, but I had no idea that the volcano is also a national icon. Koreans, across the peninsula, have long believed that they are descended from people who came from Mount Paektu. And Kim Il-Sung, the founder of modern North Korea, rekindled this ancient myth. The secret camps he established while fighting against Japanese occupation in the 1940s are on the flanks of the volcano. It is claimed that his son and successor, Kim Jong-Il, was born there.

Today the volcano is a pilgrimage site. Students, soldiers and newly-weds visit. Kindergarten children sing . I went back to the volcano for the filming of a new documentary directed by Werner Herzog, Into the Inferno.

Do you enjoy this mythologising of volcanoes?

Yes. Volcanologists take oral traditions seriously. Myths and legends often tell us important things. When Mount Pinatubo blew in the Philippines in 1991 鈥� the largest eruption in over a century 鈥� volcanologists were caught by surprise. It wasn鈥檛 recognised as a volcano that might come back to life. It later turned out that there was a local folk story, recorded by outsiders in 1915, describing a big eruption that probably occurred centuries ago. If this had come to light before the event, it might have alerted scientists to the volcano鈥檚 threat. We need to listen to such stories. We now have powerful technologies for monitoring volcanoes, but we need to deploy them in the right place to pick up warning signs in time.

But surely myths are usually just myths.

I don鈥檛 know how many of them have some basis in experience and fact, but what is striking is how important oral traditions are in helping people make sense of vast and unpredictable events in their lives. I respect that.

For the documentary, we filmed people on Tanna, a Pacific island in Vanuatu, who belong to a 鈥溾�� based around a mythical American GI called John Frum. Some say he lives in their volcano, the constantly erupting Mount Yasur [pictured], and uses it as a portal to the US. One day, he will return through the volcano bringing riches, says the local chief. The cult seems to have started as part of a movement against the French and British colonial authorities. American GIs arriving from the air during the second world war were seen as liberators. The result is an extraordinary fusion of the awe-inspiring power of the volcano, a movement rooted in anti-colonialism, the rediscovery of suppressed traditions and the marvel of American troops and warplanes.

What do traditional societies make of volcanologists?

They can be suspicious. And why not? On the slopes of Mount Merapi, a very active and dangerous volcano on the densely populated Indonesian island of Java, there is a traditional spiritual guardian appointed by the sultan of the nearby city of Yogyakarta to speak with the volcano on behalf of the people. In 2006, when Merapi began to erupt, the guardian at that time, Mbah Maridjan, defied a government evacuation order and stayed in his village. When he survived, apparently proving the experts wrong and the spirits right, he became a celebrity.

Then, in 2010, Merapi erupted again. The guardian once more refused to leave his village. But it was the biggest eruption for over a century and he was among the 350 who died, engulfed by a very hot flow of rocks, ash and gas that hurtled down the mountain. Two years later, tourists were coming to see where he died and his widow was running a gift shop selling T-shirts with her husband鈥檚 image on them.

Scientists were better regarded after that, though. There was even a campaign to make the chief volcanologist 鈥� who oversaw the monitoring and mass evacuations in 2010 鈥� the new spiritual guardian. It didn鈥檛 happen, but when we were filming at a festival on Merapi, that volcanologist was invited to a ceremony at which the elders blessed offerings to the volcano. It was a fascinating reconciliation between the spiritual and scientific worlds.

What have you been doing as a geologist amid this anthropology?

On Merapi, I have been involved in a project to set up equipment to monitor sulphur fumes coming out of the volcano, which can indicate magma movement deep underground. The Indonesian scientists also monitor changes in the shape of the cone and the earthquakes beneath the volcano. Put together, this work helped save many thousands of lives by getting people out of harm鈥檚 way in 2010.

My main research looks at the gases given off by volcanoes, to find out what they can tell us about the processes going on many kilometres beneath our feet and help us forecast eruptions. We now have devices such as infrared spectrometers that can provide fabulously detailed observations of the chemical composition of the gases. We see amazing trends in the emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide over time. The challenge in my work is to interpret what these shifts and patterns might be telling us, and whether or not they provide clues to the future activity of a volcano.

鈥淎n American GI called John Frum uses the volcano as a portal to the US鈥�

What got you hooked on volcanoes?

I went to Indonesia in 1983, partly to see a solar eclipse, but I also went island-hopping to climb volcanoes. One had erupted just the night before. It was amazing to see a forest destroyed and to leave my footprints in the new ash. I was captivated and ended up in Sumatra on an island in the giant crater lake created when Mount Toba erupted there 74,000 years ago. It was a gigantic eruption, about ten thousand times bigger than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980. It has been suggested that it shrouded the planet in dust, creating a volcanic winter.

Some researchers believe Toba almost wiped out our species. It is a controversial idea, and we may never know Toba鈥檚 true impact, but it鈥檚 possible that a future eruption of a Toba-like supervolcano represents an existential threat to humanity. Such a catastrophe could be lurking in some place we don鈥檛 even know about right now. Unless, of course, some oral tradition in a remote village could warn us.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒anger and drama on mountains of lava鈥�